Review: The Rest – Everyone All At Once

The Rest are a Canadian outfit who deserve far more attention than they have gained thus far. Their second album ‘Everyone All At Once’ comes highly recommended for those looking for emotive songwriting and ambitious arrangements, topped off by glorious vocals. Although they have been compared to media darlings, Arcade Fire, The Rest are a tad less bombastic and all the more likeable for it.

The highlights to ‘Everyone All At Once’ are many. ‘Apples & Allergies’ is all over the place melodically but is held up by Adam Bentley’s emotive turn in front of the mic and ‘Blossom Babies’ features passages of shoegaze effects but is chiefly notable for Bentley’s unfathomably high falsetto. Then ‘Coughing Blood/Fresh Mountain Air’ rides in on a sweeping, cinematic motif whilst ‘Drinking Again’ contrasts nicely with its intimate, acoustic simplicity.

With all this emotion flowing out though, there is a danger of the listening experience being too much to take in one sitting. ‘Modern Time Travel (Necessities)’ overdoes the whooping and hollering and ‘The Lady Vanishes’ is just over-produced; rather like Arcade Fire in fact. Fortunately, ‘Walk On Water’ is pitched more evenly and sounds like The Guillemots teaming up with The Beach Boys.

The Rest are one of those treasurable bands who are too wayward to atract mass attention but alongside equally heralded but obscure acts like Thin Cities and Argentine, they have left a legacy of some special music that, with any luck, will be hailed as classics in years to come. Hopefully, The Rest will return again once more and turn some of the occasional excesses on this album into something subtler.